


Happy New Year

by cubiclesdemo



Category: Mission: Impossible (Movies)
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Mutual Pining, New Year's Eve, New Year's Kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-01-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:00:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22075117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cubiclesdemo/pseuds/cubiclesdemo
Summary: No-one wants to spend New Year's Eve alone, so Ethan ensures that he and Benji spend it together.
Relationships: Benji Dunn/Ethan Hunt
Comments: 8
Kudos: 70





	Happy New Year

**Author's Note:**

> I know it's not New Year anymore but homosexuality is a 365-day event.  
> I haven't written a fic since I was 14 so,,, enjoy the best you can!

The fifth floor of the IMF was dimly lit by the lamps of the few remaining employees's desks that worked throughout the night. This line of work was always 24 hours, 7 days a week but it seemed that most of the terrorists of the world had decided to take a New Year’s break, leaving the majority of the IMF team in their respective homes and doing as they pleased.

Although not wrapped up in urgent matters, Benji Dunn was sat beside one of these lamps, typing away at his computer. He always had more work he could be doing, he was skilled in so many areas of the IMF now that if he wasn’t writing up a mission report he could be improving new hacking systems, or planning more lessons for new recruits, or analysing current data to work out which terrorist was likely to act up next… the list was endless. He was usually busy and he liked it that way. Tonight, however, even Benji Dunn was at a loss of truly constructive things to do. He was idly reading over the last data set he devised, checking redundantly for the umpteenth time that it was all accurate and correct.

If you didn’t know him better you might think that Benji was trying to avoid going home. That is only partly true. Benji likes to keep himself busy when he can to avoid being left alone with his own thoughts as they often involve replaying a collection of incidents he has been involved in that could have cost his, or worse, others, lives. This is then followed by rethinking these events over and over again in order to understand what went wrong and how to avoid that ever happening again.

If there was one thing that every IMF member had in common, it was the unrelenting feeling of guilt. It was sometimes at the forefront of every thought but mostly it just lingered in the back of the mind, subconsciously making every agent hyper-aware of all the ways they could ruin a mission. The guilt could turn every dream sour, so even asleep they couldn’t get a happy ending. It had only been a month since Benji returned home from another End-Of-The-World mission with Ethan, Luther, and Jane in Eritrea so all emotional wounds were still very fresh.

In some ways, guilt was good for ensuring thoroughness in missions as it causes agents to think through things a little more in fear of messing up. But it didn’t make day to day living any easier. Every death, every injury, every scared civilian was etched into the back of Benji’s brain, amassed by guilt that told him it was all his fault. Even if the end result of the mission was a success (which so far it always had been), he couldn’t distill the feeling that all the errors that occurred could have been avoided if he had done something better. If he had been better.

So Benji worked through most nights to force those feelings to the back of his mind, keeping himself constantly busy like most people in the IMF did.

It was only when he reached over to the right side of his desk, trying to find his notebook without taking his eyes off the screen, that he stopped working, instead, turning to jump out of his own skin as he touched something warm and alive.

Whipping his head around as his whole body convulsed, Benji was rapidly relieved to realise that it was just a hand he touched, and then his cheeks went a very dark shade as he looked up to see the hand belonged to Ethan who was stood beside his desk, dimly lit by the light of the computer screens and the lamp.

“Jesus Christ, Ethan, don’t you know it’s polite to say 'hello' when you creep up on someone?” Benji flustered, haphazardly tidying his desk space to avoid meeting Ethan’s eyes whilst his cheeks refuse to fade in colour.

“I didn’t creep up on you” Ethan bartered, only now moving his hand off the desk and pushing it into his trouser pocket. “I’ve been here for about 2 minutes, at this point I thought you were just ignoring me.”

“So you’ve just been watching me?”

“I didn’t want to disturb you.”

Benji finally looked up at Ethan and gave him a quizzical look, the older man let out a short burst of air through his nose at amusement and stayed smiling at Benji.

“So… are you going to tell me why you have graced me with your presence?” Benji quipped, quickly scanning Ethan up and down to check if he was dressed for a mission he was suddenly about to bring an unwilling Benji on.

Ethan was dressed casually, which really gave nothing away. Jeans, black shirt tucked in with a belt, the first few buttons undone and the sleeves rolled up to the elbow. Benji didn’t even bother thinking to himself that Ethan looked good, the man could be dressed in anything and Benji would still be of that opinion. It was like telling yourself the sun is bright every time you look directly at it.

“I’m going home now.” Ethan paused and Benji expected him to continue but it quickly became clear that he was not elaborating.

Benji checked the time on his computer, _21:48 12/31/19_ read the box in the corner, he had been here for 14 hours. He turned back to Ethan and tried to gage just why he had bothered coming across the building just to see Benji if not for an ulterior motive.

“So you’ve come down two floors just to say goodbye?” Benji asked, trying not to think too hard about what that meant.

“No, I’ve come to say you’re coming with me.” Ethan stated simply, as if it was obvious, as if Benji always went back with him, as if Benji had even been at Ethan’s house once.

Benji let out a short and embarrassing noise of surprise at this, laughing awkwardly as if Ethan had just said something funny. Looking back to Ethan’s face, the laugh quickly died out as he realised Ethan hadn’t been joking.

“What?”

“I said you’re coming back with me.”

“I, wh- I’m working.” Benji flustered, sounding more like he was asking a question rather than giving a statement.

“No you’re not, that’s the analytics you finished last week when I brought you coffee.”

Benji still looked perplexed, so for once, Ethan continued without being prompted.

“I know you’re just working late again to keep busy, it’s like a ritual for you after the bigger missions. And I get that,” Ethan continued before Benji could try and protest, “I’m the same, don’t want to go home because it’s too quiet, don’t want to go out because it’s too loud. But it’s New Year's Eve and if we can’t celebrate the end of the decade then maybe we should just move into a care home tomorrow and accept our fate as being _too old_.”

It was a dirty trick Ethan was playing there, the unspoken fear of any agent is being told they are just past their prime and simply unfit to work in the field anymore. Benji remembers when Ethan turned 56 and a fellow agent made a sarcastic and passing comment on Ethan getting ‘too old’ for the job. Although Ethan brushed it off and didn’t seem to mind, the rest of the evening had an uneasy air to it, that infamous fear lingering in the mind. Nobody close to the man wanted to even imagine what it would be like to work for the IMF without Ethan Hunt on their team.

Benji himself was painfully aware of his own 50th birthday rapidly approaching and tried hard to push out any thought of what that would mean for how people viewed him when he went out in the field.

With that in mind, Benji breathed in through his teeth and pointed a finger playfully at Ethan.

“Well, you’ve got me there Mr Hunt, who else is coming then?” Benji saved his work and shut his computers down, barely needing to take his eyes off Ethan as he moved with practiced ease.

“No one, just me and you,” Benji paused momentarily when reaching for his coat upon hearing this, but Ethan didn’t seem to notice. “Luther’s still in Harlem with his family, Ilsa’s in England, and I don’t even want to think about what Brandt is doing.”

Benji laughed briefly at Ethan’s last comment but it didn’t do much to help his heart that seemed to be beating irregularly at the prospect of going to Ethan’s house alone. Ethan liked him enough to want to spend time alone with Benji. Ethan liked him enough to want to spend New Year’s with Benji.

At this rate, Benji would be lucky if his heart didn’t give out before he turned 50.

Not wanting to let on just how flustered he was, Benji got up, put his coat on, and followed Ethan to the lift.

Ethan pressed the button that sent them down to the garage and true to his nature, Benji started talking nonsensical things to fill the silence that he felt oppressive.

“You drive to work?”

“Yeah.”

“I just catch the bus and walk, how far away do you live?”

“Only a 20-minute drive.”

“Okay.”

Benji felt his skin heat up again, he knew Ethan wasn’t always the biggest talker and so to him, this conversation felt completely normal, but to Benji’s anxious nature he suddenly felt insanely awkward. He knows from missions he’s been on that his habit to talk too much was far from his best quality, but that didn’t help stop his mouth talking without his brain connecting to it. To try and distill the temptation, Benji bit his tongue until they go into Ethan’s car.

When Ethan turned the ignition a local radio station started playing quietly alongside the hum of the car engine and Ethan made no move to turn it off. Benji was silently grateful for this, the radio gave him an excuse to make no effort with starting conversations and just try and think logically and maturely about being in the same car as Ethan, on his way to Ethan’s house.

They made idle conversation every now and then, Benji pointing out a good Thai place, Ethan commenting on some new traffic lights and his favourite park to go for a run. The silences were easy between them now, easing Benji’s childish nerves, and somehow Ethan even managed to make traffic lights an interesting conversation point for a while.

With every turn the car took, Benji noticed more and more how Ethan’s house was in the opposing direction to his own, leaving him to think about just _how_ would he be getting home once the night was over. Benji decided pointedly against bringing this up to Ethan. The juvenile part of his brain was irrationally afraid that by pointing out the distance between their respective houses it would turn Ethan against the idea of this night after all and send Benji home. He knew he was being ridiculous, but that did nothing to stop him from biting his tongue again.

Ethan – Benji soon discovered – lived in the suburbs in a small, detached house. A thick green hedge wrapped its way around the entirety of Ethan’s property and Ethan had to open the door with two separate locks just to get into his porch.

“The glass is all bulletproof too,” Ethan said, turning to look at Benji as he began to open the next door, aware that most agents were able to relax more in a house that they knew was secure and safe. “It was actually Luther who found this place for me after Julia and I split, he had the new glass fitted within a week.”

The mention of Julia no longer held the awkward tension that it once did before Kashmir, if there was one positive to that mission (other than stopping nuclear war, of course) was the closure that Ethan clearly got after seeing Julia happy and moving forward in her life. No one mentioned it outright but Benji could easily note the change that made to him, it was like he could almost see the penitence and worry roll of Ethan’s shoulders. Julia was living her life again, and Benji hoped that meant Ethan could live his too without feeling guilty for it.

After some fiddling with the keys, Ethan unlocked the second door and then held it open for Benji to walk through, before leading him towards the back of the house.

“There’s not much to warrant a house tour,” Ethan said, laughing airily, but still nodding and pointing towards the things they slowly walked past so Benji knew his way around. “Bathroom. Closet. I picked this up after Guyana, I thought I should get something to commemorate it going so well. The only things upstairs are a small spare room and a study.”

 _Spare room_ Benji thought and it made his mind at ease to know he would probably end up there tonight instead of having to awkwardly stand outside and wait for a taxi that would be just a little too expensive for his liking.

As they slowly made their way through Ethan’s house Benji noted the small decorations fondly. He didn’t initially peg Ethan for the type to adorn his walls with small framed paintings and to own a hefty chest of draws with a statue of a hippo and a table clock stood on it (both items surrounded by post, and books, and more trinkets). But looking at the man in front of him again as he smiled and made a comment about the deal he got on a sofa, Benji realised _of course_ this had to be the home of Ethan Hunt. There was more to the man’s persona than methodical thinking and regularly saving the world and it could be quite accurately described with the contents of his small suburban house.

The last room down the corridor was the kitchen where Ethan was leading Benji too, it was open plan and lead into the living room. Ethan nodded Benji towards a seat at the island he had in the centre of the kitchen and walked around to the other side.

“What can I get you to drink, sir?” Ethan grinned, putting his hands down on the counter and leaning forward slightly against them.

“Really don’t mind, I’ll just have the same as you thanks.”

Ethan turned around to the fridge and pulled out two beers, twisting off their lids.

“Sure you don’t want a pina colada?” 

Benji laughed and took his beer. “I think I’ll save the cocktails for 2020, thank you.”

“That’s only in…” Ethan checked his watch. “oh jeez, 90 minutes, I better go and buy some coconut milk.”

Benji laughed again and they clinked their drinks, welcoming another moment of silence whilst they took the first few sips.

“What do you usually do for New Years? Or is it tradition to pick up the first weary nerd you see doing overtime?”

Ethan laughed and shook his head. “I don’t really have set plans, if Luther is back from being with his family for Christmas then we might go for a drink, otherwise I might just watch the ball drop and go to bed if there’s nothing else. What do you do?”

“Work and go to sleep.” Benji looked down and laughed at himself. “Back in England I’d either stay in with mum or get twatted with some friends just for the sake of it, but since coming here I haven’t found much to do, and I appreciate my sleep a lot more these days. It was never something particularly sacrilegious in my house, so it’s not like I miss celebrating it. In fact, I completely forgot about it one year when I was watching Star Trek episodes on my mum’s DVD player, I didn’t realise until my sister came barging into the room to shout ‘Happy New Year’ at me.”

Ethan grinned at the story and took another swig of his drink. “Do you miss being there with them?

Benji took another sip at his own drink before answering.

“It’s hard not to miss my family, yeah, but I don’t sit around and mope over them. We’ve always been a busy lot so it’s not abnormal for us to go a long time without seeing each other.”

“Why didn’t you go and see them this Christmas?”

“My mum tends to work on Christmas day – she’s a nurse – and my sister has young kids so I don’t want to get in the way of their Christmas magic. Or more to the point I don’t want to be in charge of trying to build all their toys and encourage them to eat their broccoli.” Ethan laughed softly at that and Benji immediately sensed from the look on his face that Ethan was once that sort of fussy child. “And I also had to do a lot of work after Eritrea.”

“Or _more to the point_ you wanted to do a lot of work after Eritrea.”

That was the second time this evening that Ethan had pointed out Benji’s post-mission habit, but neither instance felt like an interrogation or a way of Ethan scrutinising him. They weren’t the only two people in the IMF to have their own ways of coping, but it was nice to know that Ethan cared enough about him to get him to talk about these sorts of things.

“Well, _yes_ , but it’s still productive and someone’s got to do it.”

Ethan finished the rest of his beer and turned back towards the fridge to get two more drinks out, already pre-empting Benji to finish his in close succession. “How does it help you?” He asked when he opened the fridge door.

Benji thought about the question for a moment, he had nothing to hide from Ethan but he still wanted to word his answer in the right way so the night didn’t turn into a therapy session.

“It’s just… nice to keep my brain distracted in a way. I’m a chronic over-thinker if I don’t keep myself busy, and the last thing I want after a mission like that is to spend every hour of the day redundantly scolding myself for any little mistake I made or any lost life I could have avoided.”

Ethan nodded in understanding, not needing to say anything. It was comforting to know that he wasn’t about to give him an inspirational speech on how Benji is good at his job and everything will be okay in the end. Or even worse, worry over Benji’s ‘darker’ thoughts and urge him to get help. They both understood what it was like in the job they do and no amount of compliments of therapy sessions could help the inevitable guilt that resides in the back of the mind. What really mattered was how they dealt with that, and Benji thought he had his coping worked out pretty well, all things considered.

“Have you ever tried spending time with other people?” Ethan asked, then continued after watching Benji’s eyebrows contort in confusion. “We come back from these missions and all just go our separate ways for a few weeks, where we then just work ourselves to the bone in one way or another until we feel normal again. Why don’t we just do this next time? We can go out or just stay in; we don’t have to think about work but if we do we won’t have to do it alone.”

Benji’s whole heart swelled as Ethan talked. He had never even considered doing anything other than being on his own, always just assuming it was the better and safer option. Maybe it was just because it was Ethan saying it but it really did sound like a good idea.

“This is a very lonely job at times isn’t it?”

Ethan laughed and gave Benji and exasperated look. “You can say that again. But it doesn’t mean we have to be alone, I've got you if you need me.”

“The same goes back to you,” Benji said, impressed with himself that he was actually able to talk coherently after hearing Ethan say that.

They remained quiet for a moment, simply just looking at each other and Benji felt something tug in his gut under the intensity of Ethan’s gaze. The other man picked up his beer and took another drink, still yet to stop looking at Benji. Ethan, he then thought, never seemed to stop smiling when he looked at or spoke to Benji. At the thought of this, he immediately looked away, turning to his own drink and finishing it off before twisting the cap off the fresh bottle Ethan got out for him.

If Benji had looked up now he would have seen Ethan’s lips quirk in a knowing way.

“You’ve been leaning against that counter for a while now, are you sure you don’t want to sit down?” Benji asked, breaking the silence with his voice a slightly higher pitch than expected. He felt hot and wanted to undo the first button of his shirt but resisted, hoping to keep some composure, at least physically.

“We can go sit on the sofa if you like,” Ethan suggested easily. Benji nodded and moved to the other side of the room.

Ethan sat down when they reached the living room, but Benji took a moment to look around the space. His eyes immediately fell to a shelf of records that he scanned through quickly before turning back to Ethan with a smirk on his face.

“You’re into a lot of… dad rock aren’t you?”

“I genuinely have no idea what you mean.”

Benji laughed airily and looked back and forth between the man on the sofa and the albums dramatically for a few paces.

“I- I mean, Creedence? Stereophonics? The Police?” Benji was pointing at albums and looking back at Ethan with increasing perplexity, hoping to get his point across. “Don’t get me wrong, great bands, but I think this is the first time in 14 years I’ve realised that you are _old_.”

Ethan burst out laughing and threw a coaster from his coffee table at Benji, who was blatantly giggling at this point.

“I like the idea of putting on some music but I don’t know if I want to go into the next decade listening to what can only be described as the Forrest Gump soundtrack.”

“Sit down and shut up, I’ll put on MTV or something then.” Ethan said between bursts of laughter.

Benji dropped himself onto the sofa beside Ethan and had some more of his drink as the man beside him fiddled with the remote. He finally settled on a 70s music channel and gave Benji a look that tried to convey that he was not up for a debate on this matter, which only succeeded in causing Benji to almost inhale his drink up his nose from more laughter.

The next hour was spent with a near-constant chatter; the awkward silence in the lift back at the IMF HQ long forgotten about. They shared stories of past New Year's Eve experiences, gossiped over particular parts of the IMF they enjoyed and also the ones they hated, and often just sat and listened to a song play and commentate on the music video or a shared memory it evoked. It was so easy to be in Ethan’s company and Benji found himself regularly trying to suppress the smitten smile that seemed to constantly blossom on his face.

The several bottles of beer they had drunk had certainly worked as a social lubricant to take the nervous edge off on Benji, but he didn’t feel much more than a little merry. The comfort of Ethan’s presence was something he experienced most of the time sober, but it was nice to be with him with some of the edge taken off.

They were both back in the kitchen getting more drinks when _Mr Blue Sky_ came on the TV, causing Benji to let out an appreciative coo. Ethan grinned at him with a raised eyebrow as he closed the fridge door with his hip, handing another drink over to Benji.

“Like the song I’m guessing?” He teased.

“Like? It’s ELO. That is _love_.”

Ethan let out a light laugh and watched as Benji danced loosely back to the sofa in time with the song, following behind and swaying his own hips slightly as if it were contagious.

Benji shared Ethan’s laugh when he saw the man behind him moving with the beat too. Neither of them chose to sit down, but rather continue their ridiculous half-arsed dancing and the poor attempt hit the high note in the chorus that they both went for.

This continued through the song; stupid dancing, weak laughing, and awful renditions of the vocals, all whilst trying to not spill their drinks.

As the song slowed down their swaying became more delirious and Ethan took the first swig of his new drink before putting a hand on Benji’s shoulder, face pink from laughter.

“I think…I think we should stick to the day job.”

Benji’s laugh was dramatic and contagious and they found themselves (yet again) smiling at one another without saying anything.

Ethan squeezed Benji’s shoulder so lightly that he wasn’t even sure if it happened and then broke contact before collapsed back on the sofa. Benji took a slurping sip of his drink before following Ethan down.

“I’ll cancel the karaoke then.”

“Probably for everyone else’s best interest.”

A new song on the TV started to play and Benji furrowed his brow slightly, eyes unfocused as he tried to recognise the song immediately before the title showed up on the screen.

“Is this…?”

“What?”

“Love Of My Life?” Benji looked back to Ethan for confirmation.

“I, uh” Ethan murmured, looking slightly startled.

Benji then looked at Ethan, focused, the soft song fading back into the background as he tried to read the look he was being given.

“Is this love of my life?” He asked again, voice quieter than before.

“Maybe,” Ethan said, matching the hushed volume, his face looked closer than before eyes wide.

“I think it is,” Benji said, barely above a whisper, now definitely much closer to Ethan.

Again, they remained motionless, just staring at each other, when Ethan started to smile at Benji as if it were a natural reflex.

Benji flickered his eyes down to Ethan’s smiling mouth and barely managed to bring his eyes back up before Ethan kissed him.

It wasn’t exactly unexpected at this point but it still took Benji a few moments to allow his brain to reboot before he reacted to anything. The second his brain reached a mere moment of clarity he immediately pressed back against Ethan’s lips.

It was chaste and cut short due to the fact that neither of them could help but smile, but Benji’s ears still rang when they pulled away slightly.

“Happy New Year” Ethan murmured, the firework sound effects emitting from the music channel on the television suddenly registering with Benji. He took a moment to glance over at the screen before quickly deciding there were more important matters at hand and kissed Ethan again.

 _Feels Like The First Time_ by Foreigner began to play on the TV, and whilst it was an apt choice for their situation, neither man seemed to notice, wrapped up in something a bit more significant.


End file.
